Book reveals sentiments of Penn State football players

Aug. 17, 2013
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Former Penn State linebacker Michael Mauti, a Nittany Lions captain in 2012, expresses his and his teammates' feelings about Jerry Sandusky and the trouble he brought on the program in a new book publishing in September. / Evan Habeeb, USA TODAY Sports

by Daniel Uthman, USA TODAY Sports

by Daniel Uthman, USA TODAY Sports

Among Penn State football players, Jerry Sandusky had been an "old guy who worked out here once in a while," and under coach Joe Paterno they "were protecting an image," team members say in an upcoming book by author John U. Bacon.

Penn State is one of four Big Ten programs examined in Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football, an exclusive excerpt of which was published in The Wall Street Journal.

The Penn State portion of the book includes reaction of the 2012 Penn State team to the unprecedented sanctions levied against the school and program in the wake of the Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. Sandusky had left the program when Penn State players were in elementary school, but he retained access to university facilities, a circumstance that figured heavily in his 2012 conviction on the abuse of 10 boys.

In reaction to the Sandusky conviction, the book quotes Nittany Lions linebacker and senior captain Michael Mauti as saying, "They used to hang people at the Centre County courthouse, and frankly, I would have been OK with that. Hell, give us the rope, and we'll do it for you."

The author also captured strong reactions to the penalties the NCAA handed down on July 23, 2012. Penn State coach Bill O'Brien is quoted in a team meeting as telling his players, "We're not here to understand the rules. We're here to follow them. It's my obligation to tell you that you are free to go anywhere you want, with no penalties. However, if you stay, I promise you, you will never forget it."

The book then details the efforts O'Brien, Mauti, fellow captain Michael Zordich and others made to keep the team together, both figuratively and in reality - the NCAA was allowing Penn State players to transfer to another Division I school and not have to sit out the normal one-year waiting period.

The excerpt also includes a passage that examines Paterno's relationship to his team in the latter stages of his career:

Sometime after Penn State's undefeated 1994 season, Paterno's passion for coaching began to wane. In 2006, after a Wisconsin player ran into him on the sidelines and injured his leg just below the knee, he hardly coached at all, watching games from the press box without a headset. After he recovered, he returned to the sidelines, but he still didn't wear a headset or carry a clipboard, and he rarely attended team meetings. Privately, the staff joked that the less the 84-year-old Paterno got involved, the better things usually went. When Paterno did weigh in, he often confused the situation, got players' names wrong or just yelled at them by their numbers.

Still, his assistants clung to certain symbols of the Paterno Way. "Shave your face, cut your hair," Mauti said, recalling the mantra. "If we weren't shaved for a practice, we would have to work out on Saturdays in the off-season. It got almost to the point where that's all that mattered."